For myself I'm not limited to a lot of the economic restrictions many players are. I earn an excellent living and can afford for each deck to have its own proprietary copies of cards. It is a punch whenever it comes to building anything blue though. 4 FoWs, probably a Flusterstorm or 2 and that's not even digging the mana base or random weirdness like JTMS, S&T or whatever.Typically it works like this. "Hey, you should build this next!" Then I do it.
I build Legacy decks around what I call the" Johnny Cash Theory", or" One Piece At A Time". For instance I am all but wrapping up my MUD build. I still lack 3 City of Traitors for it. Last week I needed a dozen or so cards. Welders, Chalices, and a couple of the 1ofs. I made it a point to get get stuff like The Platinum Emperium and Staff of Nin before I moved onto something else. Not that if a trade falls in my lap but I'm going to turn it awayas far as active purchasing or trading those were my focus.
When it comes to builds costing more than paychecks it's easy to be defeated by the enormity of the build itself I think. Set a goal, reach the goal, set a new goal. Your goal sounds like those Tundras, so go get those and move on.
I have some thoughts on this deck, as a want-all-the-mana-timmy who really wants this deck to be a thing, and as a Tron player.
First, there is no such thing as a t2-t3 Emrakul unless you're playing Goryo's Vengeance, and even if there was, Tron will use their 7 mana to cast Karn first.
I want to know how you plan on using GVengeance on Emrakul to begin with???
Expecting a reprint of Tarmogoyf to spike his price again is Tomfoolery. FTV is the only reprint I can foresee that would keep Tarmogoyfs value from dropping. Players were and still are upset about Modern Masters, most players never even got a chance to see Modern Masters near it's msrp. Modern Masters 2 will still be limited but you could be looking at 10x the print size.
As for players migrating to Modern, I too suspect Modern is growing quickly. But it's difficult to see it happening. Instead we will notice after it has happened.
I never said the reprint caused his price to rise. I said the onslaught of players willing to buy boxes for a chance to get one is what caused it. They scored maybe 1, traded for 1.... and bought the remaining 2 online or at their LGS. Again with the largest group EVER moving into modern and the lack of BUG decks in this particular group (and I am sure that is not 100% accurate but a professional opinion from objection observation). Even if the print run is 10x the size it wouldn't matter as much because the player base is now almost 35% bigger. RtR didn't just sell, it sold gangbusters and Theros followed right where it left off. Put it in anything and the renewed surge of demand will again trigger the cards price. We'll get a small dip at first and then a gradual rise in price until it meets it new equilibrium. Economic reabsorbtion is for real.
All but 1 of mine is Morningtide. I'll probably snatch up a small stack of them at 12-15 if we see it. It's trick real estate so it can only develop in modern.
No one has bothered to comment that modern is getting it's biggest batch of newcomers yet with RtR block rotating out and taking quite a bit of it's standard players with it. I would venture a guess that 85% of the regular 40+ players at my LGS that began with RtR are building or have already built their modern decks for competitive play. I am also willing to bet that my LGS is not alone in this and yours probably is as well. Now just from casually looking through their piles I can't say I have seen a BUG deck yet. Goyf, Bob, and Fetches primarily being the deterrent. Hell I built a extremely competitive B/U Fairie deck for what the Goyfs would have run me. Now I own Goyfs, 2 playsets to be exact and am in little fear of a reprint. No doubt he will be reprinted but his loss of "value" doesn't faze me. He's already been reprinted and the price only went up. The generation of Modern Masters actually created more demand then supply which is why we saw price spikes not just on him but on every other staple in it. The idea of obtaining what was unobtainable further placed these cards into unobtainium. WoTC was well aware of this before they released Modern Masters and is one of the main reasons the set was limited. It'll be done again and will achieve similar results. It's good business. Keep the herd sated just enough that those that didn't get in still feel they have a chance to and when the new peoduct drops watch it fly off the shelves meanwhile releasing public statements saying "how you're doing what you can about stability and blah blah blah".
Meh. I am just now getting used to the modern frame format. If anything they should stick with the outlying black border but go back to the original skins. That would be awesome.
To put it into perspective she is beginning to reach Karn levels. I think her price for standard is set at this point (depending on what Khans drops but I digress). Her movement from here out will be modern driven. She really ramps up Genesis Wave decks and now Green devotion seems to be a "thing".
edit - Not to say she isn't in a little bit of a bubble atm. I should specify that her movement up will be modern driven.
Just wanted a consensus from the community about the future financial viability of these. In general, not picking winners and losers or their marginal utility.
Looks like someone did a buyout on some of the foil shocks from RTR block? Prices have shot up and there are none left on TCGplayer for Godless Shrine, Steam Vents, etc.
No surprise really. My friend lost an auction the other night for 18(?) shocks where his DCA per card was just over $10. Crazy when I think about it because just 4 months ago I was raking in Breeding Pool & Steam Vents playsets for under $20. My local is stacking them as high as he can atm so a buyout was expected sooner or later.
Keep an eye on Counterflux and pick them up if you can at bulk rates. It's already on the climb and I don't think rotation is gonna give it a pause. $2-3 optimal spec probably.
Seriously, how high can duals go? $500 for an Underground Sea? $800? I ask because there is a point where holding them is ludicrous. Many people started to feel that way about fetches and a sell-off took place.
Edit: I also tend to think we are seeing a bubble. Duals will always be worth alot but people are dumping money into staples at an insane rate. Should there be any volatility to legacy or MTG in general, the crash is going to be brutal. I guess I am just trying to envision the case where people are paying $2k for a set of Underground Seas and there aren't hundreds of sellers lined up to take his cash.
I can easily see $500 dual lands. I said this in another thread, but 3-4 years ago you would have been laughed at for saying that dual lands would reach $300. That is no longer the case due to all these rounds of panic buying and inducing buyouts of cards with low print runs. All it takes it just one person to keep buying at these prices to keep the bubble going. The secondary market is being propped up more and more by the greater fool theory rather than by fundamentals.
I like you, I do so this reply isn't a slam. I actually have a special place in my heart for greater fool theory (which I will use the acronym of GFT from now on when referring to it). It doesn't exist. It holds that people purchase any object, good or service based on the idea that "it" has intrinsic value... which nothing ever does. Air does, and food does... which is about it. The price of everything else is determined by it's subjective value. Let's say I believe USea is going to rise for 4 different reasons. The going price for USeas at the time(picking an arbitrary number) is $200. I begin buying them based on those 4 reasons I believe in. I buy as many as I can get my hands on. Now 6 months later let's say I have 78 USeas and the price is still $200. I still believe USea will appreciate but I have reached enough that I feel I shouldn't have to purchase anymore for investment/trade/speculation purposes. Another months pass and the price of USea has risen $50.
Was this a self fulling prophecy? Were others fools for buying for more then I did because I bought first and lower? Am I somehow beginning a panic? None of that would be true. People buy things based on the rate of exchange, the perceived value of the good or item they are receiving vs the expense to themselves. All value is subjective because we place different values on the same goods and services. Voila... .
Prices are determined by a measure of marginal utility and when all parties have totally free reign over their assets and al parties engage in a market together we resolve every transaction from the idea of it before the purchase to it's completion against each other like exchange and against all other exchange as a beautiful concept we call Spontaneous Order. If the price of Tarmogoyf hits $1,000 then it is because people feel it is worth having one for $1,000. This isn't crazy, no crazier then a Ancestral Recall being $1,000. Goyf gets 100x the play Recall does and is played in a format 100x more popular. it's perceived value is therefore is actually greater then Recall in many ways. Now rarity aside is people shelling out $1,000 for either card an act of foolish behavior? It is not. All behavior is rational. There is no such thing as irrational behavior. If you walk down the street and you see a man punching himself in the nose as hard as he can. His face is bloody, his nose broken the first thing you might say to yourself is "my god, that guy is crazy!", who wouldn't right? But we don't know his rationality. What if he is late for a meeting that if he knows if he is not there on time he will lose his job, lose his house, probably end up in divorce and be bankrupt in the end. Well telling your boss you got mugged while walking to work and having to fight for your life is a pretty good excuse and you probably wont loss your job when your Pronto Uomo dress shirt and suite are covered in your blood and you need your nose set.
His action is rational from his point of view, irrational from ours. One never knows.
Now all this price fluctuation we've been seeing in the last few months. Who can say for sure? I will say this. RTR added a TON of new players. Did everyone believe that adding this many new players on the pile would have no effect on the prices of cards in the game? Be real. There are consequences for things. Causality will not be deterred or circumvented under any circumstances whatsoever. If you add a huge population base to another huge population base without altering the supply of every product in the market (a reprint) what did you think would happen? We'll say there was 5,000 USeas floating around the market for sale (again arbitrary numbers) and 50,000 potential buyers. Some buyers have them, some want them, some don't have them and some don't have them and don't want them. Then we double the numbers of buyers but all of whom don't have them. Some will want them, some will have them, some will want them and don't have them, some will don't want them and don't have them.
The result of this is an economic explosion in the price of USea as new buyers begin competing over them.
Sorry if this ramble took awhile. I love to talk economics and again I didn't mean ANY of this as a flame. I've spent years studying economics and price theory.
This not the place for this discussion - the warning was given earlier in the page. Infraction issued -Uldan
Let's be real for a second, are Underground Sea and Volcanic Island remain that high? I'm still missing the Volcanic and I'm unsure about picking them at their current price, I mean, it all feels so jumped up and temporary, all so sudden... What happened? Won't it be another Gaea's Cradle case?
And then what about Bayou? Will they jump too?
Until interest in reserved list cards goes down there is no way the price can decrease. The supply is too limited and the player base keeps growing (internationally and that's important to remember). Land is this game is a requirement. With some rare exceptions you need these things an they happen to be the best. I also brush off nonsense talk like "legacy is dying". Legacy is just pro tour casual magic is all. Casual magic isn't going anywhere..... ever. After SCG comes and goes, WOTC is long gone and we keep track of life totals on digital displays in our eyes there will be casual magic. I have a deck with 4x Sharazad and 4 Karn Liberated. I call it Inception and of course it is totally casual. It's also a ton of fun. Sharazad is driven by stuff like this, people building sets and pure collector interest.
I'm not sure about your reference to Cradle. When I stopped playing they were 10 bucks and I came back to 125ish soooo......
Bayou already jumped. You're late to the party.
Do yourself a favor and jsut get them anyway you can. You won't regret it.
We should start a trend by asking all these "Pros" to sign foil Goyfs.
When it comes to builds costing more than paychecks it's easy to be defeated by the enormity of the build itself I think. Set a goal, reach the goal, set a new goal. Your goal sounds like those Tundras, so go get those and move on.
I want to know how you plan on using GVengeance on Emrakul to begin with???
I never said the reprint caused his price to rise. I said the onslaught of players willing to buy boxes for a chance to get one is what caused it. They scored maybe 1, traded for 1.... and bought the remaining 2 online or at their LGS. Again with the largest group EVER moving into modern and the lack of BUG decks in this particular group (and I am sure that is not 100% accurate but a professional opinion from objection observation). Even if the print run is 10x the size it wouldn't matter as much because the player base is now almost 35% bigger. RtR didn't just sell, it sold gangbusters and Theros followed right where it left off. Put it in anything and the renewed surge of demand will again trigger the cards price. We'll get a small dip at first and then a gradual rise in price until it meets it new equilibrium. Economic reabsorbtion is for real.
Bring on the reprints.
edit - Not to say she isn't in a little bit of a bubble atm. I should specify that her movement up will be modern driven.
No surprise really. My friend lost an auction the other night for 18(?) shocks where his DCA per card was just over $10. Crazy when I think about it because just 4 months ago I was raking in Breeding Pool & Steam Vents playsets for under $20. My local is stacking them as high as he can atm so a buyout was expected sooner or later.
I like you, I do so this reply isn't a slam. I actually have a special place in my heart for greater fool theory (which I will use the acronym of GFT from now on when referring to it). It doesn't exist. It holds that people purchase any object, good or service based on the idea that "it" has intrinsic value... which nothing ever does. Air does, and food does... which is about it. The price of everything else is determined by it's subjective value. Let's say I believe USea is going to rise for 4 different reasons. The going price for USeas at the time(picking an arbitrary number) is $200. I begin buying them based on those 4 reasons I believe in. I buy as many as I can get my hands on. Now 6 months later let's say I have 78 USeas and the price is still $200. I still believe USea will appreciate but I have reached enough that I feel I shouldn't have to purchase anymore for investment/trade/speculation purposes. Another months pass and the price of USea has risen $50.
Was this a self fulling prophecy? Were others fools for buying for more then I did because I bought first and lower? Am I somehow beginning a panic? None of that would be true. People buy things based on the rate of exchange, the perceived value of the good or item they are receiving vs the expense to themselves. All value is subjective because we place different values on the same goods and services. Voila... .
Prices are determined by a measure of marginal utility and when all parties have totally free reign over their assets and al parties engage in a market together we resolve every transaction from the idea of it before the purchase to it's completion against each other like exchange and against all other exchange as a beautiful concept we call Spontaneous Order. If the price of Tarmogoyf hits $1,000 then it is because people feel it is worth having one for $1,000. This isn't crazy, no crazier then a Ancestral Recall being $1,000. Goyf gets 100x the play Recall does and is played in a format 100x more popular. it's perceived value is therefore is actually greater then Recall in many ways. Now rarity aside is people shelling out $1,000 for either card an act of foolish behavior? It is not. All behavior is rational. There is no such thing as irrational behavior. If you walk down the street and you see a man punching himself in the nose as hard as he can. His face is bloody, his nose broken the first thing you might say to yourself is "my god, that guy is crazy!", who wouldn't right? But we don't know his rationality. What if he is late for a meeting that if he knows if he is not there on time he will lose his job, lose his house, probably end up in divorce and be bankrupt in the end. Well telling your boss you got mugged while walking to work and having to fight for your life is a pretty good excuse and you probably wont loss your job when your Pronto Uomo dress shirt and suite are covered in your blood and you need your nose set.
His action is rational from his point of view, irrational from ours. One never knows.
Now all this price fluctuation we've been seeing in the last few months. Who can say for sure? I will say this. RTR added a TON of new players. Did everyone believe that adding this many new players on the pile would have no effect on the prices of cards in the game? Be real. There are consequences for things. Causality will not be deterred or circumvented under any circumstances whatsoever. If you add a huge population base to another huge population base without altering the supply of every product in the market (a reprint) what did you think would happen? We'll say there was 5,000 USeas floating around the market for sale (again arbitrary numbers) and 50,000 potential buyers. Some buyers have them, some want them, some don't have them and some don't have them and don't want them. Then we double the numbers of buyers but all of whom don't have them. Some will want them, some will have them, some will want them and don't have them, some will don't want them and don't have them.
The result of this is an economic explosion in the price of USea as new buyers begin competing over them.
Sorry if this ramble took awhile. I love to talk economics and again I didn't mean ANY of this as a flame. I've spent years studying economics and price theory.
This not the place for this discussion - the warning was given earlier in the page. Infraction issued -Uldan
Until interest in reserved list cards goes down there is no way the price can decrease. The supply is too limited and the player base keeps growing (internationally and that's important to remember). Land is this game is a requirement. With some rare exceptions you need these things an they happen to be the best. I also brush off nonsense talk like "legacy is dying". Legacy is just pro tour casual magic is all. Casual magic isn't going anywhere..... ever. After SCG comes and goes, WOTC is long gone and we keep track of life totals on digital displays in our eyes there will be casual magic. I have a deck with 4x Sharazad and 4 Karn Liberated. I call it Inception and of course it is totally casual. It's also a ton of fun. Sharazad is driven by stuff like this, people building sets and pure collector interest.
I'm not sure about your reference to Cradle. When I stopped playing they were 10 bucks and I came back to 125ish soooo......
Bayou already jumped. You're late to the party.
Do yourself a favor and jsut get them anyway you can. You won't regret it.